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How 'friendly rivalry' is keeping Reds fullbacks on their toes

Jock Campbell runs out for the Queensland Reds. Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images

Jock Campbell admits there’s plenty Jordan Petaia can do that he and others can’t but insists he brings his own strengths in the battle for the No.15.

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The Queensland Reds pair will share the fullback role again on Saturday in Canberra against the ACT Brumbies, with Petaia in a starting line-up unchanged from the one that routed the Western Force on Sunday.

Capped twice on the Wallabies’ Spring Tour last year, Campbell missed the Reds’ first-round loss with an ankle complaint and came off the bench to replace the in-form Petaia in round two.

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Fullback remains a wide-open position under Australia’s new coach Eddie Jones, and in a World Cup year that jostle at club level could turn tense.

But Campbell says the pair’s “friendly rivalry” – and distinct differences – keeps things amicable.

“Having someone as good as Jordy putting pressure on me and vice versa, it’s only helped both of us,” he said of Petaia, with whom he often plays golf when not at Ballymore.

“We’re quite good mates, we’re learning off each other and it’s a friendly little rivalry we’ve got going.

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“We’ll have discussions over d (defensive) set-ups, running lines.

“But you have to take into account we’re very different players in our positions, bring very different things.

“Jordy brings a lot of things that I can’t bring, a lot of things that nobody can bring, with that speed and athleticism.

“I bring voice, composure, making the right decisions.”i

The Brumbies underlined their quality with a tough win over the Blues despite the loss of prop and captain Allan Alaalatoa to an early head knock.

He won’t face the Reds, with Test halfback Nic White promoted off the bench to captain and No.10 Noah Lolesio also starting after performing the finishing role to begin the season.

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Tom Wright will make his own case for a Wallabies No.15 jersey for the hosts, while former rugby sevens star Ben O’Donnell is on the bench and could debut.

The Reds have won four of their last five matches against the Brumbies, with three of those wins by three points or less.

“We’ve rotated quality for quality in a couple of areas and we’re confident this is the right group to perform for us on Saturday night,” Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham said.

“It’s a big game for our organisation; first game as the ACT Brumbies since 2004 at our home ground and we’re tracking for a big crowd so we’re ready to go.”

REDS: Dane Zander, Matt Faessler, Zane Nonggorr, Ryan Smith, Seru Uru, Liam Wright (cc), Fraser McReight, Harry Wilson, Tate McDermott (cc), Tom Lynagh, Filipo Daugunu, Hunter Paisami, Josh Flook, Suliasi Vunivalu, Jordan Petaia. Bench: Richie Asiata, Sef Fa’agase, Peni Ravai, Connor Vest, Jake Upfield, Kalani Thomas, James O’Connor, Jock Campbell.

BRUMBIES: James Slipper, Lachlan Lonergan, Rhys Van Nek, Nick Frost, Cadeyrn Neville, Rob Valetini, Rory Scott, Pete Samu, Nic White (c), Noah Lolesio, Corey Toole, Ollie Sapsford, Len Ikitau, Andy Muirhead, Tom Wright. Bench: Connal McInerney, Blake Schoupp, Tom Ross, Darcy Swain, Luke Reimer, Ryan Lonergan, Jack Debreczeni, Ben O’Donnell.

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J
JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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